History
Weishaupt was born of Westphalian parents at Ingolstadt
(Bavaria), on 6 February, 1748, and lost his father in 1753. Although educated
at a Jesuit school, he fell early under the influence of his free-thinking
godfather, the director of the high-school of Ickstatt, to whom he owed his
appointment as professor of civil law at the University of Ingolstadt in 1772.
He was the first layman to occupy the chair of canon law at this university
(1773), but, in consequence of the growing rationalistic influence which he
exerted over the students both in his academic capacity and in his personal
intercourse with them, he came into ever sharper collision with the loyal
adherents of the Church and with those who were influential in government
circles. As, furthermore, his obstinate nature led him to quarrel with almost
everyone with whom his intercourse was at all prolonged, he felt the need of a
powerful secret organization to support him in the conflict with his
adversaries and in the execution of his rationalistic schemes along
ecclesiastical and political lines. At first (1774) he aimed at an arrangement
with the Freemasons. Closer inquiry, however, destroyed his high estimate of
this organization, and he resolved to found a new society which, surrounded
with the greatest possible secrecy, would enable him most effectually to
realize his aims and could at all times be precisely adapted to the needs of
the age and local conditions.
His order was to be based entirely on human nature and
observation; hence its degrees, ceremonies, and statutes were to be developed
only gradually; then, in the light of experience and wider knowledge, and with
the co-operation of all the members, they were to be steadily improved. For his
prototype he relied mainly on Freemasonry, in accordance with which he modelled
the degrees and ceremonial of his order. After the pattern of the Society of
Jesus, though distorting to the point of caricature its essential features, he
built up the strictly hierarchical organization of his society. "To utilize
for good purposes the very means which that order employed for evil ends",
such was, according to Philo (Endl. Erkl., 60 sq.), "his pet design".
For the realization of his plans, he regarded as essential the "despotism
of superiors" and the "blind, unconditional obedience of
subordinates" (ibid.), along with the utmost secrecy and mysteriousness.
At the beginning of 1777 he entered a Masonic Lodge and endeavoured, with other
members of the order, to render Freemasonry as subservient as possible to his
aims. As Weishaupt, however, despite all his activity as an agitator and the
theoretic shrewdness he displayed, was at bottom only an unpractical bookworm,
without the necessary experience of the world, his order for a long time made
no headway. The accession to it, in 1780, of the Masonic agent Freiherr von
Knigge (Philo), a man of wide experience and well known everywhere in Masonic
circles, gave matters a decisive turn. In company with Weishaupt, who, as a
philosopher and jurist, evolved the ideas and main lines of the constitution,
Knigge began to elaborate rapidly the necessary degrees and statutes (until
1780 the Minerval degree was the only one in use), and at the same time worked
vigorously to extend the order, for which within two years he secured 500
members. When the great international convention of Freemasons was held at
Wilhelmsbad (16 July to 29 August, 1782) the "Illuminated
Freemasonry", which Knigge and Weishaupt now proclaimed to be the only
"pure" Freemasonry, had already gained such a reputation that almost
all the members of the convention clamoured for admission into the new
institution. Particularly valuable for the order was the accession of Bode
(Amelius), who commanded the highest respect in all Masonic circles. Assisted
by Bode, Knigge laboured diligently to convert the whole Masonic body into
"Illuminated Freemasons". A number of the most prominent
representatives of Freemasonry and "enlightenment" became Illuminati,
including, in 1783, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, the foremost leader of
European Freemasonry and the princely representative of the illuminism of his
age. Other famous members were Goethe, Herder, and Nicolai. The order was also
propagated in Sweden, Russia, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Austria, and France.
But in 1783 dissensions arose between Knigge and Weishaupt, which resulted in
the final withdrawal of the former on 1 July, 1784. Knigge could no longer
endure Weishaupt's pedantic domineering, which frequently assumed offensive
forms. He accused Weishaupt of "Jesuitism", and suspected him of
being "a Jesuit in disguise" (Nachtr., I, 129). "And was
I", he adds, "to labour under his banner for mankind, to lead men
under the yoke of so stiff-necked a fellow?--Never!"
Moreover, in 1783 the anarchistic tendencies of the order provoked
public denunciations which led, in 1784, to interference on the part of the
Bavarian Government. As the activity of the Illuminati still continued, four
successive enactments were issued against them (22 June, 1784; 2 March, and 16
August, 1785; and 16 August, 1787), in the last of which recruiting for the
order was forbidden under penalty of death. These measures put an end to the
corporate existence of the order in Bavaria, and, as a result of the
publication, in 1786, of its degrees and of other documents concerning it--for
the most part of a rather compromising nature--its further extension outside
Bavaria became impossible. The spread of the spirit of the Illuminati, which
coincided substantially with the general teachings of the "enlightenment",
especially that of France, was rather accelerated than retarded by the
persecution in Bavaria. In two letters addressed to the Bishop of Freising (18
June and 12 November, 1785) Pius VI had also condemned the order. As early as
16 February, 1785, Weishaupt had fled from Ingolstadt, and in 1787 he settled
at Gotha. His numerous apologetic writings failed to exonerate either the order
or himself. Being now the head of a numerous family, his views on religious and
political matters grew more sober. After 1787 he renounced all active connexion
with secret societies, and again drew near to the Church, displaying remarkable
zeal in the building of the Catholic church at Gotha. he died on 18 November,
1830, "reconciled with the Catholic Church, which, as a youthful
professor, he had doomed to death and destruction"--as the chronicle of
the Catholic parish in Gotha relates.
Objects and organization
As exhibiting the objects and methods of the order, those
documents are authoritative which are given in the first and second sections of
works in the bibliography. The subsequent modifications of the system,
announced by Weishaupt in his writings after 1785, are irrelevant, since the
order had spread far and wide before these modifications were published. The
above-named documents reveal as the real object of the Illuminati the
elaboration and propagation of a new popular religion and, in the domain of
politics, the gradual establishment of a universal democratic republic. In this
society of the future everything, according to Weishaupt, was to be regulated
by reason. By "enlightenment" men were to be liberated from their
silly prejudices, to become "mature" or "moral", and thus
to outgrow the religious and political tutelage of Church and State, of
"priest and prince". Morals was the science which makes man
"mature", and renders him conscious of his dignity, his destiny, and
his power. The principal means for effecting the "redemption" was
found in unification, and this was to be brought about by "secret schools
of wisdom". These "schools", he declares, "were always the
archives of nature and of the rights of man; through their agency, man will
recover from his fall; princes and nations, without violence to force them,
will vanish from the earth; the human race will become one family, and the
world the habitation of rational beings. Moral science alone will effect these
reforms 'imperceptibly'; every father will become, like Abraham and the
patriarchs, the priest and absolute lord of his household, and reason will be
man's only code of law" ("Nachtr.", p. 80 sq.; repeated verbatim
in Knigge, "Die neuesten Arbeiten", p. 38). This redemption of
mankind by the restoration of the original "freedom and equality"
through "illumination" and universal charity, fraternity, and tolerance,
is likewise the true esoteric doctrine of Christ and his Apostles. Those in
whom the "illuminating" grace of Christ is operative (cf. Hebrews
6:4) are the "Illuminati". The object of pure (i.e. illuminated)
Freemasonry is none other than the propagation of the "enlightenment"
whereby the seed of a new world will be so widely scattered that no efforts at
extirpation, however violent, will avail to prevent the harvest
("Nachtr.", pp. 44, 118; "Die neuesten Arb.", pp. 11, 70).
Weishaupt later declared (Nachtrag zu meiner Rechtfertigung, 77 sqq., 112 sqq.)
that Masonry was the school from which "these ideas" emanated.
These objects of the order were to be revealed to members
only after their promotion to the "priestly" degree (Nachtr., I, 68).
The preliminary degrees were to serve for the selection, preparation, and
concealment of the true "Illuminati"; the others were to open the way
for the free religion and social organization of the future, in which all
distinction of nations, creeds, etc., would disappear. The government of the
order was administered by the superiors of the Minerval "churches",
"provincials", "nationals", and "areopagites"
(who constituted the supreme council), under the direction of Weishaupt as
general of the order. Members were acquainted only with their immediate
superiors, and only a few trusted members knew that Weishaupt was the founder
and supreme head of the order. All the members were obliged to give themselves
a training in accordance with the aims of the society, and to make themselves
useful, while the order, on its part, pledged itself to further their interests
by the most effectual means. They were especially recommended to systematically
observe persons and events, to acquire knowledge, and to pursue scientific
research in so far as it might serve the purposes of the order. Concerning all
persons with whom they had intercourse they were to gather information, and on
all matters which could possibly affect either themselves or the order they
were to hand in sealed reports; these were opened by superiors unknown to the
writers, and were, in substance, referred to the general. The purpose of this
and other regulations was to enable the order to attain its object by securing
for it a controlling influence in all directions, and especially by pressing
culture and enlightenment into its service. All illuministic and official
organs, the press, schools, seminaries, cathedral chapters (hence, too, all
appointments to sees, pulpits, and chairs) were to be brought as far as
possible under the influence of the organization, and princes themselves were
to be surrounded by a legion of enlightened men, in order not only to disarm
their opposition, but also to compel their energetic co-operation. A complete
transformation would thus be effected; public opinion would be controlled;
"priests and princes" would find their hands tied; the marplots who
ventured to interfere would repent their temerity; and the order would become
an object of dread to all its enemies.
Concerning the influence actually exerted by the Illuminati,
the statements of ex-Freemasons—L.A. Hossman, J.A. Starck, J. Robinson, the
Abbé Barruel, etc.--must be accepted with reserve, when they ascribe to the
order a leading rôle in the outbreak and progress of the French Revolution of
1789. Their presentation of facts is often erroneous, their inferences are
untenable, and their theses not only lack proof, but, in view of our present
knowledge of the French Revolution (cf., e.g., Aulard, "Hist. pol. de la
Rév. Franç.", 3rd ed., 1905; Lavisse-Rambaud, "Hist. générale",
VIII, 1896), they are extremely improbable. On the other hand, once it had
discarded, after 1786, the peculiarities of Weishaupt,
"Illuminationism" was simply the carrying out of the principles of
"enlightenment"; in other words, it was Freemasonry and practical
Liberalism adapted to the requirements of the age; as such it exerted an
important influence on the intellectual and social development of the
nineteenth century.
